


Plural Determiner

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Implied Relationships, Infection, M/M, Possession, Season/Series 04, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-13 17:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21190355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: There's only twenty-four hours left of Zolf's captivity. Such a short amount of time. And Oscar has made a terrible mistake.





	Plural Determiner

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Miri for giving it a read over!

Oscar drains the last drop of sake from his cup. It’s a cheap quality that he would once have eschewed, the kind that drags nails down the back of his neck, but that was another time, another life. He sets the little cup down on the table and unfolds himself from his seat. 

He heads towards the back room of the inn and the stone steps that lead down to the cage. Hamid catches up with him there. He must have run, and his own glass is still in his hands.

“Is it time?”

“You don’t need to come with me,” Oscar says. 

“I know you don’t like doing this,” Hamid replies.

Oscar suppresses a sigh. Hamid is not wrong. “It isn’t a pleasant task. But it needs to be done.”

And this time it isn’t something that he can pass off to someone else. Both for security reasons and for more… personal ones. 

“Then I’ll come with you,” Hamid says. Oscar can see the lines on his brow where it’s furrowed in concern. Right. Of course. He’s not far enough gone to not recognise that, no matter that sometimes he feels like he’s cauterised that part of himself that recognises people as anything other than tools. 

But not Zolf. Never Zolf.

“Very well,” Oscar says, and begins to descend. 

The dim light casts the figure in the cage into stark relief. Zolf is sat on the bed, leant against the wall, with one of those novels he’s so fond of in his hands. It has a particularly florid cover, all heaving bosoms and oiled chests, and Oscar wonders if he could pinpoint the moment when the sight of those damn books became comforting. 

Zolf stirs and looks up at them, gaze flicking between Oscar and Hamid. “Is it that time already?”

“Afraid so, Zolf,” Hamid says, before Oscar can open his mouth. 

Oscar’s jaw clenches, torn between irritation and relief. He nods in agreement and moves to stand in front of the cage instead of hovering in the doorway like he normally would. He owes Zolf this much.

“It’s alright,” Zolf says, and starts the slow process of stripping off, “I know the drill.” He smiles over at Oscar as he unfastens his shirt, a wry, fond expression that Oscar has come to know well over the past few months. 

Oscar feels the scar tug when he smiles back, the expression coming to his face unbidden. He shouldn’t. His silence and distance is carefully cultivated for situations like this but… Zolf has rather made himself the exception to the smaller rules, the rules that Oscar imposes upon himself. 

“Day six, isn’t it?” Zolf asks. He slides the trousers down, struggling little where they catch on metal limbs.

“It is,” Oscar replies. He ignores the look Hamid gives him, surprise and suspicion. Probably remembering Oscar’s silence during his own captivity.

Zolf nods. “Looking forward to sleeping in a real bed again. My back is killing me.”

“If you can call those beds,” Oscar mutters. He’s slept in far worse places, and doubtless will again, but he can’t help but miss the bed in his London house, and long for that over futons and tatami.

Zolf sheds his trousers, exposing the prosthetics and the curve of his arse. Pale skin, unblemished by anything more suspicious than scars. 

Oscar lets out a breath, and Zolf glances over his shoulder at him, gives him that reassuring look, the one he wears when he thinks Oscar is shutting down too much. Shutting _out_ too much. He’s usually right and it’s infuriating.

Twenty four hours. The part of himself that he thought he’d strangled after the scar latches onto that. Of course, it says, it’s just one day. Hardly any time at all. Why bother with keeping him imprisoned for a day?

God, but it’s tempting. Once he had never lacked for company, and now talking to anyone else beyond mission parameters seems exhausting. Dangerous. He’s tried with Hamid and Azu since their return, even Cel. It’s getting easier, like they’ve rekindled something snuffed out by betrayal, but Zolf has been his sole confidant for the better part of two years. This week of quarantine has just illustrated how much he’s come to rely on him, both professionally and otherwise.

“Well?” Zolf says, and Oscar drags his attention back from the maudlin interior of his own mind. Zolf’s dropped the shirt onto the cot. Oscar’s gaze roams the familiar planes of his back, mercifully clear of infection.

“Nothing there,” Hamid says, and he makes no attempt to hide the relief that Oscar cannot voice. “Just the front now, Zolf.”

“Yes, yes,” Zolf replies. He eases himself around and there’s just twenty four hours to go and that shouldn’t make a difference, what’s one more day going to do and-

The blue curls out from Zolf’s heart across his chest, a damning map of infection and betrayal.

Oscar turns on his heel and walks out in silence. Hamid calls after him, but goes unheeded. There’s a roaring sound in his ears. It fills his skull with static and cold. Maybe someone calls to him from the main room of the inn. Maybe they don’t. He doesn’t know, mind fixed on the singular goal of their bedroom.

_His_ bedroom now. Remove that messy plural determiner. 

Zolf hadn’t struggled is the thing. Hadn’t resisted going into the cage. 

There’s still one of his romance books on the futon, and it hits the wall with an unsatisfying thud when Oscar hurls it. 

Zolf had understood the necessity of it less than a week ago. Had he just not realised then? Not known about the intruder seeping through his blood?

A book of poetry hits the wall and slumps next to its mate. Heat pricks Oscar’s eyes, runs down his face, chokes the air in his lungs into breathless sobbing gasps. Isn’t that funny? Strange that it’s coming from him when there’s just crystal clarity spreading through him, his very own opposing infection. 

Had it all been a ploy? Be reasonable and compliant and _Zolf_ for long enough to get past his guard? Or had it crept up slowly, a shock to the system as time wore on, and he was too trapped to tell them?

A third book, one of Oscar’s own, falls. He wishes he had more than books to throw. Wishes he could afford to drown himself in alcohol and inadvisable sex, the poisons of choice for the him of eighteen months ago.

Twenty four hours to go and Oscar could have got them all killed or worse, so much worse than a nasty scar and paranoia. All because he got attached. Got sloppy. Let affection, messy _emotion_ cloud his judgement.

His gaze falls on the clothes that are not his laid out on the chair. On the books and other meagre trinkets that Zolf had intended to return to. 

Oscar won’t let that clouded judgement happen again.

“Oscar?” says a voice from the door. Hamid. Concern drips from every word. 

Oscar takes a breath and draws himself up, from the ragged slump of shoulders to straight-backed authority. Once he might have used magic to make himself pristine, but that isn’t him anymore.

“Hamid,” he says, that cold clarity seeping into his voice.

“Oscar, are you okay?”

Oscar turns to look at him. He had never been someone who could pull off crying beautifully. Knows that he looks a wreck. That’s alright. He just won’t let it happen again. Shore up the cracks and smooth them over until the facade is complete.

“We have work to do,” he says. Now more than ever that is true.

“Oscar, we need to tal-“

“No,” Oscar says. Hamid flinches at the hollow tone. Oscar lets that clarity settle deeper into him, and feels nothing. “We do not need to talk.”

“Then what? What do we do now?”

Oscar’s gaze falls upon the glaive laid out by the bed. A familiar sight. It had been a comfort, knowing that if it was there, Zolf would be coming back.

Oscar Wilde stoops to pick it up, testing the weight of it in his hands, and the soft hum of magic beneath his fingers. Wilde turns back to Hamid. 

“We finish the mission.”


End file.
